Rattle Poetry

Latest Episodes:

ep. 76 - Jennifer Jean Jan 18, 2021

Show notes

Rattlecast #76 features Jennifer Jean and her new book, Object Lesson. Jennifer Jean's poetry collections include OBJECT LESSON (Lily Books) and THE FOOL (Big Table). She's also released the teaching resource book OBJECT LESSON: A GUIDE TO WRITING POETRY (Lily Books). Her poetry, prose, and co-translations have appeared in: Poetry Magazine, Waxwing Journal, Rattle Magazine, Crab Creek Review, DMQ Review, Green Mountains Review, On the Seawall, Salamander, The Common, and more. She's been awarded a Peter Taylor Fellowship from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, a Disquiet FLAD Fellowship from Dzanc Books, and an Ambassador for Peace Award from the Women's Federation for World Peace. As well, she is the translations editor at Talking Writing Magazine, a consulting editor at the Kenyon Review, a co-translator of Arabic poetry and organizer for the Her Story Is collective, the founder of Free2Write Poetry Workshops for Trauma Survivors. Jennifer is the new Manager of the Fine Arts Work Center's 24 Pearl Street Online Writing Program; and she lives in Peabody MA with her family. Find more at: https://jenniferjeanwriter.weebly.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Dictionary.com named pandemic its Word of the Year for 2020. Users of the online dictionary elected unprecedented as the People’s Choice 2020 Word of the Year. Write a poem using both of these words. Next Week's Prompt: Write an alphabet poem, a type of acrostic poem in which the first letter of each line spells out the alphabet. If you’re up for more of a challenge, write a double alphabet: the last letter of each line also spells out the alphabet, but in reverse order. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 75 - Alexis Rotella Jan 13, 2021

Show notes

Rattlecast #75 features 2020 Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist Alexis Rotella and her most recent book, Dancing the Tarantella. Alexis received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Drew University, where she did her thesis on Zen Buddhism. She also received a Masters in Classical Acupuncture from The Academy for Five Element Acupuncture, as well as a doctorate in clinical hypnotherapy. In 1984, she served as the President of the Haiku Society of America and edited it's haiku journal Frogpond the same year. In 2009, she founded Prune Juice, an English-language journal for senryu. Rotella is the 2019-2020 honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in Sacramento. She has authored or coauthored more than forty books and chapbooks, most of which have focused on haiku and related Japanese poetry in English. Find more at: https://alexisrotella.wordpress.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: A circus with no audience. Next Week's Prompt: Dictionary.com named pandemic its Word of the Year for 2020. Users of the online dictionary elected unprecedented as the People’s Choice 2020 Word of the Year. Write a poem using both of these words. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 74 - Marjorie Lotfi Jan 05, 2021

Show notes

Rattlecast #74 features Marjorie Lotfi, a frequent contributor to Poets Respond, and her most recent book, Refuge. Marjorie Lotfi was born in New Orleans, spent her childhood in Tehran, then lived in San Diego, Washington DC and New York before moving to London in 1999 and Edinburgh in 2005. She founded and runs Open Book, which organizes reading groups in community settings and with vulnerable adults, and The Belonging Project, a creative writing project considering flight, journey, assimilation and belonging alongside the experiences of refugees and migrants. Her poetry examines journeys and questions of belonging, particularly relating to the experiences of refugees and migrants. Refuge takes its starting point as 1970s Tehran, in an Iran on the cusp of revolution, and explores ideas of flight, journey and assimilation. Find more on Marjorie at: http://www.marjoriegill.com/ Find the Open Book fundraising anthologies at: https://openbookreading.com/donate/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: We used randomwordgenerator.com to select three random words: fear, staircase, passage. Use all three words in a poem, or use the Random Word Generator to pick three words of your own. Next Week's Prompt: A circus with no audience. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 73 - Skye Jackson Dec 30, 2020

Show notes

Rattlecast #73 features Skye Jackson, one of the 2020 Rattle Poetry Prize finalists, and her recent chapbook, A Faster Grave. Skye Jackson was born in New Orleans. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop where she serves as an associate poetry editor of Bayou Magazine. She is the author of the prizewinning chapbook, A Faster Grave, published by Antenna. Find the book here: https://www.antenna.works/product/a-faster-grave/ Find more on Skye here: https://www.skyejackson.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem titled “Astronaut.” Avoid using the words space, spaceship, stars, moon, rocket, planet. Next Week's Prompt: We used randomwordgenerator.com to select three random words: fear, staircase, passage. Use all three words in a poem, or use the Random Word Generator to pick three words of your own. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 72 - Amy Miller Dec 23, 2020

Show notes

Rattlecast #72 features Amy Miller and her most recent book, The Trouble with New England Girls. Amy has appeared many times in Poets Respond and six times in Rattle's issues, most recently issue 67. Amy Miller's full-length poetry collection, The Trouble with New England Girls, won the Louis Award from Concrete Wolf Press, and her latest chapbooks are I Am on a River and Cannot Answer (BOAAT Press) and Rough House (White Knuckle Press). She won the Cultural Center of Cape Cod National Poetry Competition, judged by Tony Hoagland, the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize from Cultural Weekly, and the Earl Weaver Baseball Writing Prize from Cobalt Review, and has been a finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize, the Tinderbox Prize, and the 49th Parallel Award. For more information, visit: http://writers-island.blogspot.com/ I Am on a River and Cannot Answer (free PDF): https://bit.ly/3ntVnxb Rough House (free): https://www.whiteknucklepress.com/amy-miller-rough-house As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a Clogyrnach, a syllabic Welsh form with six-line stanzas. Learn more about it here: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/clogyrnach-poetic-form Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem titled “Astronaut.” Avoid using the words space, spaceship, stars, moon, rocket, planet. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 71 - Sarah P. Strong Dec 16, 2020

Show notes

Rattlecast #71 features Sarah P. Strong and their new book, The Mouth of Earth. Sarah has appeared in seven issues of Rattle, most recently in this winter's. Sarah P. Strong is the author of two poetry collections, Tour of the Breath Gallery, winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize (Texas Tech, 2013), and The Mouth of Earth (University of Nevada, forthcoming 2020), and two novels, The Fainting Room (Ig, 2013) and Burning the Sea (Alyson, 2002). Their poems have appeared in many journals, including The Nation, The Southern Review, Southwest Review, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Sun. They are the recipient of a Connecticut Artist Fellowship Award, a Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Elizabeth Matchett Stover Award from Southwest Review, and their work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sarah teaches creative writing at Central Connecticut State University and the University of Hartford. For more information, visit: https://sarahpstrong.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate and typically commonplace objects. Write a still life poem. Next Week's Prompt: Write a Clogyrnach, a syllabic Welsh form with six-line stanzas. Learn more about it here: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/clogyrnach-poetic-form The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 70 - Alan W. King Dec 09, 2020

Show notes

Rattlecast #70 features Alan W. King and his forthcoming chapbook, CROOKED SMILING LIGHT. Alan has appeared in issues 31 and 54 of RATTLE. Alan King is an author, poet, journalist and videographer, who lives with his family in Bowie, MD. He’s a communications specialist for a national nonprofit and a senior editor at Words Beats & Life‘s global hip hop journal. King is the author of POINT BLANK (Silver Birch Press, 2016) and DRIFT (Aquarius Press, 2012). He’s a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA Low-Residency Program at the University of Southern Maine. His poems and short stories appear in various literary journals, magazines and are featured on public radio. For more information, visit: https://alanwking.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem about a scientific discovery—real or imaginary. Next Week's Prompt: A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate and typically commonplace objects. Write a still life poem. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 69 - Jim Peterson Dec 02, 2020

Show notes

Rattlecast #69 features winter issue contributor Jim Peterson and his new book, The Horse Who Bears Me Away. Jim Peterson is the author of six collections of poetry, three chapbooks, numerous plays, and a novel, Paper Crown, published by Red Hen Press and recently made available on Audible. His poetry collection The Owning Stone won Red Hen Press’s Benjamin Saltman Award for 1999. His newest collection, Speech Minus Applause, was released by Press 53 in 2019. His poems have appeared widely in journals including Poetry, Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, and many others. His stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Review, South Dakota Review, and The Laurel Review. A collection of stories, Many Small Fires, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Retired Coordinator of Creative Writing at Randolph College, he is on the faculty of the University of Nebraska-Omaha Low-Res MFA Program in Creative Writing. He lives with his charismatic corgi, Mama Kilya, in Lynchburg, Virginia. Find Jim's new book at: https://redhenpress.org/products/the-horse-who-bears-me-away-by-jim-peterson As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: What’s on the other side of that door? Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem about a scientific discovery—real or imaginary. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 68 - Steve Henn Nov 25, 2020

Show notes

Rattlecast #68 feature's Steve Henn and his forthcoming book, Guilty Prayer. His poems have appeared in Poets Respond and four issues of Rattle. Steve Henn wrote Indiana Noble Sad Man of the Year (Wolfson Press 2017), And God Said: let there be Evolution! (NYQ Books 2012), and Unacknowledged Legislations (NYQ Books 2011) and the forthcoming chapbook from Main Street Rag, Guilty Prayer (out Feb/Mar 2021). He has been featured at the Long Beach Poetry Festival, the Uptown Poetry Slam, IUSB Visiting Writer Series, Bloomington Writers Guild series, at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, in the Divedapper Carnival poetry showcase, and elsewhere. He raises the 4 children of he and the late artist Lydia Frances Henn (1980-2013) and teaches in Indiana. For more information, visit: https://www.therealstevehenn.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Randomstreetview.com is a site that randomly generates photographs of streets all over the world. Find a photo that speaks to you and write a poem about it. Next Week's Prompt: What’s on the other side of that door? The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

ep. 67 - Brian Sonia-Wallace Nov 18, 2020

Show notes

Rattlecast #67 features RENT Poet founder Brian Sonia-Wallace and his new book, The Poetry of Strangers. In 2012, Brian set up a typewriter on the street with a sign that said “Poetry Store” and accidentally started his business: RENT Poet. Over 5,000 poems later, his book of essays, The Poetry of Strangers, profiles the communities he's written for across America, and the desperate desire to be listened to and heard that he found. Excerpts have been published in The Guardian and Rolling Stone, and he's been the official Writer in Residence for unlikely clients from Amtrak to the Mall of America. Brian Sonia-Wallace also just been named Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. For more information, visit: https://rentpoet.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem that focuses on opposites or contradictions—a noisy library, a sunny night, a tragic comedy, etc. (Write your whole poem about one or sprinkle many throughout.) Next Week's Prompt: Randomstreetview.com is a site that randomly generates photographs of streets all over the world. Find a photo that speaks to you and write a poem about it. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

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